Children with autism spectrum disorders

Intervention packages combing behavioral interventions (e.g., time delay, physical prompting, or prompt fading) and Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) systems have proven to be effective in developing communication skills for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Charlop-Christy et al., 2002; Greenberg et al., 2014). However, both preservice and in-service speech language pathologists have limited exposure to the benefits of using behavioral interventions to teach non-vocal functional communication skills (King et al., 2014; Muharib et al., 2019). This study used a multiple probe design across participants design to examine the effects of an online training package to teach speech-language pathologists (SLP) to use a behavioral intervention that combines backward chaining and AAC systems to increase non-vocal requesting of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Two preservice SLPs completed three self-guided video modules on backward chaining and augmentative and alternative communication, engaged in role plays with an adult confederate, and participated in live feedback sessions. Once completed, preservice SLPs learned to use a backward chaining procedure with a communication board to teach children with ASD non-vocal requesting. Results showed that the online training package was effective in increasing the knowledge and skills of the preservice SLPs in using backward chaining to support AAC use and increase the child’s non-vocal requesting.

The present study aimed to gain a better understanding of the emotion processing abilities of children between the ages of 4 and 8 with ASD by examining their ability to correctly recognize dynamic displays of emotion. Additionally, we examined whether children with ASD showed emotion specific differences in their ability to accurately identify anger, happiness, sadness, and fear. Participants viewed a continuous display of neutral faces morphing into expressions of emotion. We aimed to measure observed power and asymmetry using EEG data in order to understand the neural activity that underlies the social aspects of ASD. Participants with ASD showed slower processing speed and decreased emotion sensitivity. On tasks that involved the recognition of expressions on the participants’ mothers’ faces, differences were less apparent. These results suggest that children with ASD are capable of recognizing facial displays of emotion after repeated exposure, this should be explored further in future research.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) commonly present with reading comprehension impairments that impede their academic achievement and independent living. Research suggests that intervening on listening comprehension deficits of preschool children with ASD may contribute to improved reading comprehension proficiency in the school aged years. Dialogic reading is an empirically supported shared reading method known to increase the oral language and listening comprehension of young children with and without language impairments prior to formalized schooling.
This study utilized a single subject repeated acquisition design to evaluate the effect of a parent-delivered dialogic reading intervention on the independent and accurate responding of preschool children with ASD. Overall, results showed that the dialogic reading intervention was highly effective for increasing the independent and accurate responding for two of the three participants; however minimally effective for the third.
Although the parent participants demonstrated varying levels of procedural fidelity to the dialogic reading procedures, they perceived the intervention to be both feasible and effective when implemented with their preschool children with ASD. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.